Using group supervision

• Group supervision allows practitioners to hear different voices and perspectives about practice (Bostock et al., 2019). 
• Participants can discuss suggestions with, and get feedback from, both peers and supervisors (Kadushin and Harkness, 2014).

• Group supervision can challenge practitioners’ assumptions about practice, helping them to become more aware of blind spots and biases (Staempfli and Fairtlough, 2019, Lees and Cooper, 2019).
• It also offers a space to hold important conversations about social justice, ethics and anti-racism (Kadushin and Harkness, 2014 in Sutton, 2022).

• Practitioners find group supervision to be emotionally containing, and supportive which helps to reduce feelings of burnout (Staempfli and Fairtlough, 2019, Lees and Cooper, 2019). 
• Sharing anxieties, challenges and uncertainties with others is helpful in planning next steps when practitioners feel stuck or unclear (Bogo et al., 2004).

• Jointly engaging in reflective group discussions helps teams become more supportive and cohesive (Bailey et al., 2014 and Wagenaar, 2015 in Staempfli and Fairtlough, 2018, Lees and Cooper, 2019). 
• Developing a better understanding about other people’s roles (both within the organization and the wider system) strengthens organisational identity and helps practitioners to work together more effectively (Lees and Cooper, 2019).

• Group supervision can support practitioners to become more reflective and confident in their practice (Tietze, 2010 in Staempfli and Fairtlough, 2019, Ravalier et al., 2023).
• It can be used to actively rehearse and role-play conversations and plan next steps in practice (Bostock et al.,2019).
• Conversations about role boundaries in group supervision help practitioners develop a stronger sense of professional identity (DiMino and Risler, 2012).

• What might be the benefits of group supervision for your work context?

• What do you hope group supervision might offer your team which is not already offered by individual supervision?

• How might you explain these benefits to your team when you introduce the idea of group supervision?

Time: ⏲ 60 minutes | Format: online or in-person

Adapted from Staempfli (2019). Intervision is a peer-led model of group supervision. The various roles are shared within the group and members swap roles from session to:

• This can be a helpful model to begin with if you are unsure about facilitating a group process.
• Basic principles: one person presents, one person facilitates, one takes notes, and the rest reflect as a team on the presented At no point is there direct interaction between the reflecting team and the presenter. The facilitator guards ground rules and time.

Time: ⏲ 45-60 minutes | Format: online or in-person

Adapted from Ruch (2019) and Sutton (2022). In this reflective case discussion model of group supervision participants discuss a practice scenario in depth and reflect on their responses to this.

• The facilitator, usually the practice supervisor, actively takes part in the discussions to prompt everyone to share their reflections as well as keeping the group on task and on time.
• Basic principles: a presenter outlines a challenge from practice, the group then discusses this with the presenter listening. In the final round of discussion everyone contributes and reflects on learning. The facilitator prompts the group to be reflective and curious throughout.

Time: ⏲ 45-60 minutes | Format: online or in-person

Adapted from Partridge (2019). Bells that ring model of group supervision is informed by systemic and strengths-based approaches and supports a curious and inquisitive approach to exploring multiple perspectives.

• Group members take up different roles so that different perspectives can be explored.
• Practice supervisors are actively involved in allocating roles and keeping the group on time as they move through the different stages of discussion.
• Basic principles
  A presenter has a conversation with a consultant with a separate observer group listening. An action planner notes any decisions or tasks arising from the discussion.
• Watch the short film below to see this mode of group supervision in action.

So we are going to have a go at the Bells That Ring group supervision process. I'm going to take the role as of the supervisor, so I'm going to allocate roles to you and you've got a card just to help remember what you're supposed to be doing, although I'm sure you know already. 

So Michelle, you're going to be the consultant. I'm going to be the supervisor. I'm probably going to take the role of action planner as well. You're going to be the observer. Esther, you're going to be the presenter. And here you go for, um, those are the reflections when we get to them and there's the process down there.

Ok. So let me tell you a little bit about the case. 5-year-old Ali fell out of a window in his parents' home and as a result, was removed originally. Went to stay with his aunty, his father's sister, but I guess because not enough was known about the paternal family, e ended up in foster care for a while and was returned home. 

His brothers were also removed very briefly. There is an ethnically mixed parenting. Couple of... both young parents and mum is white British and converted to Islam some years ago when she was with her oldest son's father, her previous relationship.

So do you want to kick off for about five minutes? Five, 10 minutes, Michelle? 

So Esther, what is it you would like us to like help thinking about today? 

I guess in thinking about this family, I'm just aware that I sometimes feel a lone voice in the system who are considering risk with greater anxiety than I am. So I'm just wondering if my alliance with the mother is preventing me seeing risk. 

What might you have heard that tells you that they feel, think this way? 

I've certainly heard from all the professionals in schools that they are worried and they feel I'm not attending to their worries enough. 

Yeah, that's what have they said. They're worried that these are parents that can't keep their children safe. They're worried that they can't engage the parents in conversations about their worries. They're worried that because of the history and what happened to Ali, the same might happen again, that there's carelessness, neglect around.

What are your thoughts, just in general about the family? How, how do you experience them? 

I experience... I've increasingly experienced the mother as thoughtful, reflective, worried, concerned. She's also very good at challenging this system at what she feels is racism. Um, and so sometimes that means she doesn't present the best side of herself with professionals. 

If you look at the genogram guys, you'll see that all five children are at different schools and nurseries. So there are two professionals from each school and nursery who are white, British women and have a particular view perhaps about Kelly the mother. 

Michelle and Esther, thank you. It is time to hear from the reflecting team. So I'm going to ask you to talk between yourselves and to try and avoid making any eye contact with them so they don't feel they've got to respond to you. So they can just be free to think. And if you kind of share your thoughts for about 5, 7, 8 minutes. 

I think what really stuck out for me was thinking about how Esther saw the parent as a partner, as somebody they were working closely with and really building up that relationship with and how they… it seemed clear that the professional network maybe had a very different view as to how they were positioning the parent, I suppose. And it made me think a little bit about how the sort of the national context at the moment is thinking about risks slightly differently. Maybe trying to think about contextual risk as well as risk within a family, and how the child protection system for a long time now has been the parent with their deficit. And we've kind of got a little bit stuck maybe in thinking about that. And I really liked how Esther was able to sort of be quite brave and say, you know, no, we're going to… we're going to treat this parent as the thoughtful, reflective person who's… actually evidenced with her, the conversations that she has had. 

Yeah. And I felt that the theme of and ideas of Kelly's strength that Esther had seen - this strong, relatively young female mother of five, woman, really, really getting her… really fighting for what she felt that was right for her family and her voice not being heard. And actually the ideas of what could Esther do to help her get her voice acknowledged and listened to? I felt very positive about that and I felt it was really encouraging. And the idea that there could be change. And actually with a bit of further thought between the two, the partnership, this new partnership, this alliance, changes could happen. 

Thank you everybody. We are going to go back to Michelle and Esther. And Michelle, it's your chance to see what's kind of stuck for Esther out of that conversation. 

So Esther, thoughts to how you experienced all the feedback that you got?

It gave me a very nice warm feeling. I felt very validated. It was really nice to hear colleagues notice and appreciate what I think I'd been doing. So you know, that was really, really nice. 

Was there anything in particular that resonated with you?

Um, I really like the idea that seems to be developing in my mind of being… helping Kelly promote herself in the best possible way and being a bit of a mediator between the concern in the professional network and the lived kind of reality that I'm seeing, which makes, makes my anxiety lessen a bit.

Is there anything else that you would've liked us to have attended to that we didn't? 

I realised that when I presented this family, I didn't talk a lot about the men. And so maybe it would've been interesting to think about the role in the place of the father that's living with Kelly at the moment and the father of the older two that lives in Birmingham. 

Now it's the chance for us to think about what things we might want to take forward from this discussion. And I'm the role of action planner, so it's my responsibility to make sure that we've got some actions coming out of this supervision session. I'm wondering what thoughts people have got? There was a really rich conversation about sort of, the way that Esther carefully and thoughtfully thinks about the family and we sort of talked about whether or not… what would it be like if Kelly was witness to that. Yeah? But also, what would happen if those other professionals were witnessing Kelly engaging in that conversation, hearing it and reflecting about that? Because I guess the relational element seemed to be missing at times with the other professionals. And it would be lovely to be able to think about how Esther could orchestrate something like that happening. Yeah? Anyone got any thoughts about that? 

No, I mean, I think that sounds like a brilliant idea and I mean it could even be on Kelly's terms. It could be somewhere where Kelly feels comfortable.

Yeah, it could be. And I think just, you know, what you were talking about, what we heard Esther talking about it being a very big network. You know, we could be speaking to Kelly about who she'd feel comfortable [having] there, the kind of people that she really wanted to sort of think about. You know, they could talk together first about who she wanted to be there and who it would be useful in developing a different relationship with and reframing that relationship. 

Mm-hmm. I think in a way that's a really good idea. I don't think that Kelly would be phased. I think with some support she'd be quite happy in a way to present another side of herself and have the opportunity to do that. So I think it, it's worth me exploring with her.

So it sounds like one of the action points coming out of our conversation is finding ways to demonstrate to other professionals the Kelly that you've met, and to begin to do that systematically with other parts of the network. Does that make sense? 

So shall we move into thinking about what we've learned from doing this today? You know, what's it been like being in the position you're in? You know, what kind of learning points do you think that we could pull out or any theory practice links for that matter? I really appreciated observing, you know, the conversation, but especially the questions you were asking Michelle. Because I think you don't often get the chance just to sit there and listen obviously to the content of the conversation and try to think about creative ways to think about some of these dilemmas. But just to hear really good, thoughtful questioning that teases things out. It was, yeah, it was, it was brilliant. 

Yeah. I was curious about whether Esther had had had any of these thoughts? Before whether or not her… um, the ideas of helping Kelly have a voice and helping other people see what she sees in Kelly. Whether that's been in her mind? And also it made me feel that… I wondered how Kelly would feel about knowing that we were, we had all been sharing her story and thinking about her in this way? 

I was initially absolutely terrified about revealing my casework to my peers, my supervisor. But actually I found it exceptionally helpful. One, I found it validating and it's… so thank you very much for that. So I feel like I'm on the right track and it's given me some new ideas. It's made me more curious about the possibilities and I'm very grateful for that. Thank you everybody. 

Each model of group supervision has strengths. In choosing a model you might want to consider:

• What do I aim to achieve in offering group supervision?

• Which model seems to offer a good fit with the culture of my team and organisation?

• Which of the models seems to fit with my aims for learning in the group?

• Which model feels the easiest to implement?

• Monitoring attendance levels: A low level of attendance may indicate that people are not finding it useful. This can be a helpful prompt to talk to the group about the barriers they are experiencing.
• Regular reviews: This need not be time consuming or complex. Perhaps use the last five minutes of the sessions to ask group members how they have experienced the group?
• Impact on practice: Collect examples during group supervision about how the process has impacted on practice.
• Feedback: Check out with the group whether they have noticed any improvements in resilience or team work as a result of using group supervision. If you are a practice supervisor, you are well-placed to notice these things, so also ask yourself what changes you are observing.

• Which skills of group supervision are already areas of strength for you?
• What needs to happen for you to feel ready to give it a go?
• Which skills of group supervision would you like to develop further?
• Who can be your partner in this? Do you have a colleague who might introduce group supervision in their team at the same time, so that you can share experiences and support each other's learning?

• How do you feel about exploring and resolving conflict in group supervision sessions?

• How able are you to reflect ‘in action’ and to notice when a group might be engaging in ‘groupthink’?

• What is your experience of maintaining emotional safety when a person feels criticised or shamed in a group?

• Who can support you in further developing these skills?

Focusing on the social GGRRAAACCEEESSS is a useful way of embedding conversations about power and difference into group supervision discussions.

Differences based on identity and social power can sometimes become apparent in overt ways.  For example, if a group member makes an assumption based on a stereotype.

Issues of power and difference can also have influence in more subtle and less visible ways.  Some group members may have had previous experiences of not being listened to or being given space in groups to speak up and may find it hard to do so in group supervision.

Other group members, who have different life experiences which have given them opportunities to speak and be heard, may find it easier to contribute so that their voices are heard more often. This is known as ‘voice entitlement’ (Boyd, 2010).

Group supervision can be a very useful environment to reflect on these themes.

Group supervision is a valuable space in which to discuss issues of inclusion, power, identity and difference. This can break what is sometimes called the ‘loud silence’ (Crehan and Rustin, 2018) around inclusion, equality and diversity.

Loud silence refers to when group participants are anxious about these discussions and do not speak up.

Sutton (2022, p.6)

• How comfortable are you with conversations about social GGRRAAACCEEESSS? Are there some themes you feel more comfortable with and others with which you feel less comfortable?
• How much have you been able to reflect on your own social GGRRAAACCEEESSS and how they position you in relation to the members of the group, or the people with which your team works?
• What experiences have you had of discussing issues of power and difference in groups?
• How able do you feel to initiate conversations about power, difference and sameness within the group?
• Who can support you in reflecting more on these themes?
• Do you know of anyone else who is interested in group supervision in your organisation that you can connect with to share ideas and progress with?

• What experiences have you had of group supervision? What emotions were you left with?

• How might those emotions affect you now as a facilitator?

• How do you feel about introducing group supervision into your team?

• How open are you to hearing feedback from the group, reflecting on it and sharing your own learning?

• To what extent do you need to have your expertise acknowledged by the group?

• How might you feel about being seen to get something wrong in the group?

• How comfortable are you with silence?

• How do you respond to conflict between group members? Do you experience an urge to fix it or are you comfortable with allowing group members to sit with it?